The King is Dead

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Strider has been published! If you're a Steamscapes: Asia backer, you should have an e-mail waiting for you with a link to download the PDF.

This is my first time writing a long-form adventure, but I think I did a pretty good job. (I certainly hope I've picked up something after 25 years of gaming.) I'd love to hear your feedback, though, so please feel free to comment here or on Google+. Send me an e-mail if you like!

Eric kindly calls it a mini-campiagn, but I'd say it's more just an old TSR-style adventure. In either case, it's 27 pages of NPCs, new equipment, plots, and random encounter tables that should hopefully add up to a month's worth of gaming sessions.

It's a cross-country quest and a murder mystery rolled into one. There's a robot geisha, a steam-powered mecha, and chanbara-style wandering swordsmen to be found within. There's gratuitous Seven Samurai and Godzilla Easter eggs. Some of the weirdest figures in Meiji Japan make appearances -- including Saitō effin' Hajime.

As part of the whole sales pitch, I promised that I would also convert it to Deadlands and other Savage Worlds steampunk settings. That will probably just take the form of blog entries providing converted NPC stats and (minor) setting tweaks. I really need a break after busting my butt to get this written over the last three weeks, so expect those to start in December. In the meantime, if you're the publisher or writer of a Savage Worlds steampunk setting, please consider the cross-promotional benefits of providing me with a copy of your setting book. :) The only ones I've actually got are Deadlands Reloaded and Gaslight 1st Edition.

Eric says he plans on publishing it commercially after the backers have had a chance to enjoy it for a bit. We're happy to take any feedback you want to give on it to make it better. I implore you to leave comments! How will I ever learn otherwise?

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Okay, it took a little longer than I wanted it to, but I got sick and it couldn't be helped.

Strider -- the adventure module I promised backers of Steamscapes: Asia -- is finished. I just e-mailed it to Eric Simon, so that gives him a week to get it formatted. I certainly hope he's not trying to do anything too fancy with it...

This now means that I have to start working on completing the Japan section of the book, but I should be able to work at a more relaxed pace. Which will be good for my health... And the blog... And The King is Dead.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Yesterday on Google+,
I wished that somebody else would write a Super Powers
Companion-compatible science-fantasy sword and sorcery setting in the vein
of Blackstar, He-Man and the
Masters of the Universe, Crystar the Crystal
Warrior, etc. Response was enthusiastic and – of course – my stupid brain
immediately began churning out ideas.

Dammit.

Anyway, here’s some notes toward an
SFS&S setting…

EDEN3

World
of Wonders

A wondrous world

Worlds have risen and worlds have died
many times since the Cosmos was born. Now – one the far reaches of the Cosmos –
a new world is in its birth pangs. Eden3has been
seeded by far-traveled, long-lost civilizations and now its barbarous
inhabitants struggle to master the strange wonders their forebears left behind.

ARC-Angels

Though the orbiting supercomputer DeusMAX and its cadre of ARC-Angels were set in place to defend Eden3from extraplanetary interference, a serpent has still come to this wondrous garden…

Probes from the Blight, a malevolent techno-organic
empire, have breached DeusMAX’s defenses above the eastern continent of
Sylvania, where they convert land and people into drones…

Blighted lands

Emissaries from the Blight – representing
themselves as humanoid ambassadors of a foreign power, rather than the soulless
constructs of an evil machine – have sown discord in the other lands of Eden3.

Siliconoids

They have sown the seeds of civil war amongst the
Siliconoids of the Ringing Mountains…

Thunder-Tamers

And amidst the Thunder-Tamers of the southern
continent of Primordia...

Feralia

They have awakened an ancient evil in the northern
lands of Feralia…

Millennia

And uncovered hidden magic on the western continent
of Millennia...

DeusMAX has responded by alerting the world’s
natives through signs and portents, sending ARC-Angels as its messengers, and
awakening heroes.

The fate of Eden3 is in the balance. Will you
champion Good or Evil?

Design Notes

No Ersatz Good Guys

A pet peeve I have with a lot of
settings inspired by unlicensed properties is that they stick in NPCs that take
all the good parts. In every damned superhero setting, there’s always some NPC
who’s already Superman, who’s already Batman, who’s already Wonder Woman.
Cartoon Action Hour has its own pseudo-Masters
of the Universe setting, but then ruins it by inserting its own version of
He-Man.Screw that. The players of the campaign
should get to take those roles (if they want them). It might be helpful to
include some character builds as examples, but they’ll be really, really
generic examples like “World’s Strongest Man” or “Felinoid Noble.”

Bad guys,
on the other hand, are fair game. I’m already thinking “Nekronomikus” for the
Skeletor knock-off.

Race Build Packages

I figure a good way to help save
time on building characters would be to put together some “races” as packages
of powers. I can’t remember how many points Four-Color Heroes get, but I’d say
take about a third of those to go to standardized races – Siliconoids,
Felinoids, Weaponeers, etc. – and then the rest can be customized for
individual characters. This might mean breaking some of the power-buying rules,
but who really cares? I don’t.

(“Weaponeers”
is my half-formed thought as to how to characterize She-Ra, He-Man, Blackstar, Thundarr,
and most of their human friends. Most of them seem to have some kind of gimmick
related to a weapon or piece of armor – like all of the above’s swords or Fisto’s
big honkin’ glove – hence “Weaponeers.”)

Savage, Not Silly

As much as Eden3 may be inspired by a bunch of goofy
toys, this wouldn’t be a saccharine-sweet setting. In this world, the heroes
get to actually hit people with their magical swords and mighty fists. There
would be peril and death and competent villains. You could – I suppose – run it
as a kid-friendly setting, but that’s not how I would run it.

Friday, November 14, 2014

The gentleman thief (also “lady thief” or “phantom thief”)
is a cunning and charismatic cat burglar. He is as adept in social settings as
he is in picking locks and scaling heights. The gentleman thief is generally
averse to physical violence, and prefers to use his cunning to confound his
foes. Gentleman thieves usually work alone or with small bands of allies, but
have been known to become leaders of criminal syndicates.

In the upheavals
of the Meiji Restoration, one woman has risen from poverty to triumph. The
former guttersnipe who now calls herself “Nabeshima Toyoko” or “the Princess of
Hizen” frequents the grand hotels and embassies of the newly-christened Tokyo
in her self-claimed guise as a woman of wealth and power. There she steals from
Japanese ministers and foreign dignitaries alike, adding to her wealth while
embarking on a grand scheme to be the queen of Japan’s underworld.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

The following are stock NPC archetypes for a Savage Worlds
chanbara setting. They represent typical samurai that might be encountered in
the tense, uneasy “peace” of the Tokugawa Shogunate rather than the martial
valor of the Sengoku era.

New Background Edge

Samurai

Requirements: Novice

While the samurai are often thought
of as Japanese nobility, this isn’t quite true. The samurai of the Sengoku and
Edo eras were a much larger, much more varied caste than European nobility.
They ran the gamut from impoverished farmer samurai to the wealthy retainers of
the shogun. They were united by a common background as the warriors or servants
of their lords, but otherwise varied greatly.

The
defining aspect of the samurai was the exclusive right to own and wield the daishō
– the matched pair of katana and wakizashi – and so any character with the Samurai
Edge begins play with those weapons. As the only authorized wielders of swords,
even the poorest samurai also had the right of life and death over peasants and
so gains a +2 to Charisma to reflect the persuasive power of a sharp sword.

[Game
Masters enforcing historical gender roles in their campaign may wish to grant a
naginata and tanto to female samurai rather than the daishō.]

Samurai, Typical

A Typical Samurai might be the
retainer of a daimyo or a minor official in the shogunate. This samurai is going
to be called on more often for her intellectual skills than for her fighting
abilities, but she still trains regularly in case she’s deployed to quell a
peasant rebellion or needs to defend her lord. Samurai acting as police or
assassins will have a higher Fighting skill and additional combat edges.

A Poor Samurai will be a lesser
retainer to the daimyo of a poor domain or one who that has lost political
favor. During the Tokugawa Shogunate,
the daimyo were divided between the shinpan and fudai daimyo (relatives of the Tokugawa
and early allies of the clan respectively) and the tozama daimyo who allied
with the Tokugawa after the wars were over. The shogunate often tried to
deliberately bankrupt these untrustworthy vassals, and the retainers of the tozama
lords sometimes found themselves laboring as builders and farmers.

A Wealthy Samurai might be a daimyo
or an important official in the shogunate. This samurai is a political and
social threat more than a physical one; this samurai is connected and can wield
his or her retainers against the player characters or call in favors with his
or her superiors.

A ronin is
a samurai without a master and therefore outside of the social order. Most
desperately work to be accepted by a new clan, but some descend into banditry
and lawlessness. These statistics represent the latter; ronin trying to go
straight would be Typical or Poor Samurai with the Outsider Hindrance.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

I am not a fan of overly-detailed character backgrounds.
Playing an RPG is not the same as writing a novel nor is it the same as acting
for the stage or screen. Player characters need to be flexible and open enough
that players can always find a way to justify their characters participating in
the game at hand. “My character wouldn’t do that” is the stupidest, most
selfish thing a roleplayer can say at the gaming table, and far too many gamers
of my acquaintance use detailed character backgrounds as an excuse to be jerks
to their fellow players (and those fellow players include the GM).

That said, when you’re writing an adventure (as opposed to a
dungeon) or a setting for others to GM and play, you obviously need to provide
some background on the NPCs. Action comes from motivation, and motivation comes
from background. How much background do you need to include to provide
motivation?

I’ve got three articles coming up in the next Savage
Insider. One is an Auspicious Archetypes article in which I provide a build and
new Edges for an archetype called “the Badass” – a charismatic fighter in the
vein of John Shaft and James Bond.The
next is a character spotlight article focusing on a Zorro-like heroine called
La Pantera and her associated cast of NPCs. The third is a detailed location, a
pseudo-Chinese, pseudo-Silk Road city intended as a setting for wuxia
adventures.

While only the last article is technically about the setting,
they’re really all kind of mini-settings. The Badass article contains a short
Savage Tale – a ‘70s grindhouse adventure called “Frisco Freakout” – and the La
Pantera article contains the aforementioned cast of characters and a few short
adventure seeds.The setting article, of
course, contains a map and a breakdown of local factions and important NPCs.

The thing is, though, that none of these NPCs receives more
than a single paragraph of description.

Do you really need any more than that?For me, at least, it’s really, really easy to
extrapolate characterization in Savage Worlds from a few lines of backstory and
a character’s Hindrances and Edges.

Hindrances are penalties that players give their characters
in order to earn points they can spend for additional cool stuff during
character creation.Many of these
Hindrances are psychological – Bloodthirsty, Greedy, Heroic – and even the
purely mechanical Hindrances – Blind, One Arm, Young – have implied backstory
to them.

While Edges – the special abilities and powers you can buy
with those points – are largely mechanical, the particular Edges chosen can
really inform character too.A Quick
character redraws initiative cards of 5 or less; a Level Headed character, on
the other hand, draws two initiative cards and uses the best. The former
implies greater raw speed and the latter implies a greater ability to react to
changing circumstances.

For example, here’s an NPC from “Zhàndòu: City of Warriors:”

The most prominent caravanserai is
the House of Xiang. It is a large complex close to the fortress, and contains a guǎn (training hall), living quarters,
stables, and storage buildings. Master Xiang Kairan is not only a commercial
power in the city, but also the wulin
mengzhu – the acknowledged leader of the local martial artists. He is a
master of the Tiger Fist style and teaches that to his employees. The Tigers of
Xiang are widely acknowledged as the true force of order and justice in Zhàndòu
City – riding out to fight the bandits when the garrison abandons caravans to
their fate – but this has led to them becoming arrogant and boastful. Xiang
Kairan is not a young man, and, while he increasingly turns his thoughts to the
afterlife, his students are getting out of control. It may soon be time for a
new wulin mengzhu.

Gear: Rich but not ostentatious formal robes; the master of the
Tiger Fist style prefers to fight unarmed, but will wield a ji or jian when
fighting bandits.

That paragraph of backstory tells us that Master Xiang is a rich kung fu
master and entrepreneur.He’s basically
head of the local adventurer’s guild, but he’s getting on in years.His students are honorable but full of
themselves, and tend to push others around.That’s all I really need to run an NPC, but what more do his stats tell
us?

·Attributes:
His Attributes are all d8; d6 is the human average, so we know Master Xiang
is above-average in everything. He’s
faster, smarter, and stronger than your average Joe, but not superhuman.

·Skills:
D12 is the highest skill die available – but the true master of a skill can get
up to a+2 bonus by taking extra Edges; Xiang is a great fighter, but not the
best. Have his skills deteriorated in old age, or did he just never push
himself to that extra level? As a GM, that’s the kind of ambiguity I like in an
NPC to allow me to make the character my own.That he’s better at Taunt than Persuasion indicates he’s not the most
diplomatic of leaders, but his rank in Streetwise shows he knows the right
people to get things from.

·Hindrances:
Code of Honor tells us he’s a man of his word, but – as the expanded
information on the wuxia code of honor contains in the article explains – that also
means he won’t turn the other cheek when insulted. There’s an actual Hindrance called Elderly
that imposes serious physical restrictions; since he doesn’t have it, that
implies he’s not that old. His
eyesight is going and he’s going to tend to shout and ask “What did you say?” a
lot, but he’s still hale and hearty.

·Edges:
Brawler, Bruiser, and Improved Martial Artist all add raw damage to a character’s
unarmed attacks; Improved First Strike says that he’ll try to hit you first
rather than react to your maneuver, while Improved Frenzy means he’s gets extra
attacks. In other words, his Tiger Fist style is about sheer power.He’s only got a couple of Leadership Edges,
so he’s never invested all that much energy in being a leader (no wonder his
students are out of control).His
Connections are within the jianghu –
the martial arts community – instead of civil authority or the military;
between those Connections, his Charisma, and his Streetwise, he’s obviously
pretty capable at getting things done despite his limited interest in leadership.

Tough and charismatic with a vicious fighting style, it seems like there’s a
couple of ways to interpret his personality.One would be a Good Old Boy – a guy who knows everyone and keeps it
homey and “real.”Another would be as a
Man’s Man – and aging Clint Eastwood of a martial artist, less a leader than
just the toughest guy on the block.Another would be the Angry Old Man – a former tough guy who’s losing his
edge and is pretty pissed about it.Even
though I wrote this character, I swear that I have no definitive interpretation
of how to play him.As a GM, I prefer
that flexibility, but I know that isn’t true for everyone.

Since I’m now writing professionally, is this enough for me to provide?Do I need to give GMs multi-page backgrounds
for important NPCs?How much detail is
enough?I know that every circumstance
will be unique – there’s some mysteries in the adventure I’m writing for Steamscapes: Asia, and I know I’ll have
to provide more background than I usually do on some of the characters – but is
it better to err on the side of verbosity or brevity?

PWYW For This Thing We Wrote!

Four-in-Hand Games

Wine and Savages + DriveThruRPG

Steamscapes by Four-in-Hand Games

Buy This Thing I Wrote!

Buy This Thing I Wrote!

Buy This Thing I Wrote

Buy This Thing I Wrote

Featuring "The Super-Power Toybox: Beyond Capes and Tights"

Buy This Thing I Wrote

Featuring "An Abundance of Gods," an examination of Shinto.

Buy This Thing I Wrote

Contains "The Badass," a new character archetype complete with new Edges, Hindrances, and a funky grindhouse adventure; "La Pantera," a Zorro-esque pulp superheroine and her supporting cast; and "Zhàndòu: City of Warriors," a wuxia setting that includes adventure seeds and crappy maps I drew!